


A kiss on the hand (is two wasps in a bush)

by ang3lba3, Mellomailbox



Series: Polycule? More like poly COOL [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Asexuality, Developing Relationship, Edward Elric Swears, Feelings, Fluff and Angst, Incest, Kissing, M/M, Polyamory, Post-Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Relationship Negotiation, Sibling Incest, but it's a non-sexual relationship, guys I know we tagged this ed/al, it's all sensual/sensory, nuerodivergent characters, sensory processing issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:23:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22890154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ang3lba3/pseuds/ang3lba3, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellomailbox/pseuds/Mellomailbox
Summary: “I think we’re not doing it right,” Al decides. “Or, well. I think I’m not right. I didn’t come back right-- no, stop,” and he has his hand over Ed’s mouth. He doesn’t even lean up, just keeps his face in the safety of Ed’s skin. It’s dark, and damp. Ed smells like sweat, and grosser things. “I’m different, and it’s hard and you don’t know what to do and I--- maybe know a little bit. What to do.”Al peels his hand off.“You came backmine,”Ed says fiercely.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric/Edward Elric
Series: Polycule? More like poly COOL [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1578928
Comments: 3
Kudos: 97





	A kiss on the hand (is two wasps in a bush)

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note: We don't want to be disingenuous to the readers, but tagging for this has been difficult. To the Ed/Al shippers, we're tagging it specifically for those who have it blacklisted. This series involves a mutually non-sexual relationship between Ed and Al that consists mostly of cuddling, overstepping typical taboo boundaries on m/m physical affection, and non-sexual kissing. It puts us in a gray area when it comes to ships, but it's the relationship that developed between them while writing. Thank you to those who will read this despite the weird shipping limbo!
> 
> find ang3lba3 on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/cryingiscooltm)

Al’s going to miss Xing. He loves almost everything about Xing, probably because he loves most everything about _life._ Even being stung by the native hornets has its charm, because he can _feel it_. They make their nests in the lunar lillies and he’s so enraptured by them that he continues to get too close. He has a jar filled with a healing paste made specifically for their stingers. It smells like flowers and cloves and he leaves the lid off sometimes, just to let it scent his room. He likes the way it makes his skin tingle, and sometimes he’ll rub it into his skin even when there’s no sting to heal. 

They leave tomorrow. He has plenty of time to say goodbye to everyone he needs to. Ed, of course, has been saying goodbye to Ling several times a day for the past five days. It takes several hours each time, and Ed walks back bitten red and dazed, entirely useless. He fell _asleep_ while Al was telling him about his day, last night. He was _standing._

“Al! What the fuck are you doing by the hornets again you fucking walnut!” 

Al doesn’t jump. He could sense Ed coming, thanks to his practice in qi sensing. To be honest, he’s never needed qi to sense with his brother’s around. 

“Smelling the flowers,” he says evenly, and steps even closer to the nest. One flits by his ear and lands on his shoulder. He holds perfectly still, because as nice as it is to piss Ed off, it’s significantly less nice to get stung in the neck. 

Ed stops several steps away, comes to a screeching halt and stares at the hornet. Al can practically feel his anxiety and he sighs, rolling his eyes to catch Ed’s. “I’ve survived this long, brother. A bug isn’t gonna kill me.” The hornet flies away and Al relaxes, taking it as a sign to stop while he’s ahead. He steps away from the blossoms and closer to Ed, who’s rocking back and forth, hands clenching and unclenching like he wants to physically grab Al and drag him away, or check him for injuries. 

He _doesn’t_ touch him, though, and Al feels more of his-- _something_ pressurize. Is it his temper? Al’s gotten angry plenty of times since returning to his body, over relevant things and completely incomprehensible ones (the sheets in his bedroom at Granny’s house being blue resulted in a blackout that he woke from with a flurry of cotton shreds and no recollection of how it happened, after which he took a 32 hour nap).

So Al’s been angry. He struggles with identifying his emotions, but he thinks he has a pretty good handle on that one. It’s similar to the pressure in his diaphragm but not the same, not quite. He presses his hand against it just to see if it’s actually air and maybe he’ll pop himself like a balloon. 

His hand meets linen and flesh and bone. He doesn’t pop. 

“Al?” he asks, zeroing in on the motion and taking all the wrong conclusions from it. “Are you— did you develop a pollen allergy? Can you breathe okay? Make a circle with your other hand if you can’t speak—”

“You’re such a drama queen,” Al says, and normally it’s fond but the words twist on the way out of his mouth and leave a bitterness on his tongue. He swallows, tastes it, swishes his spit around in his mouth a little. 

Ed tries to turn it into a joke, Al can tell before he even talks, and he can also tell that it’s going to fall spectacularly flat. There’s this— twist to the left and a kind of corkscrew motion in his qi, when Ed’s about to make a _really_ terrible social maneuver born of anxiety and hurt feelings. It’s not a movement, really, but it’s… 

“Ha, yeah, well, actually Ling _lost_ that argument. I’m just a drama peasant for now.” Ed smiles uncertainly at Al, hand in his own hair, fidgeting. Al wants to have his hand in Ed’s hair, fidgeting. He rubs his chest again instead. 

They don’t touch anymore. It’s not a big deal. It shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s not like he _wants_ Ed to touch him like how he touches Ling. Or Winry. But they don’t _touch_ , at _all_. And so Al doesn’t— touch— anyone.

“I don’t really wanna hear about Ling right now, brother,” Al sighs. Maybe he can just set a boundary and Ed won’t demand an explanation. 

Ed always demands an explanation. 

“Did he do something to you?” Ed says, and his eyes go cold. He drops his hand from his hair, finally, _finally_ reaches out, grips at Al’s elbow.

It makes him angrier. It’s what he’d wanted. It makes him _so much angrier._

“Of course not,” Al snaps, and he pulls out of Ed’s grip and immediately regrets it. It doesn’t abate the anger, instead fueling it more, oxygen that wouldn’t have been there if he’d just stayed there. “And it’s not like it would matter if he had tried anything with me, because it would be more attention than I’ve gotten,” he stops himself, then the words climb out of his mouth of their own volition, “if he did at least someone would be _paying attention to me_.” 

“Wh-” Ed starts, and then chokes on the word. He doesn’t reach out for Al again, but Al can feel that he wants to, can see it. It’s not _fair._ He only wants to touch Al when he’s hurt. It’s like he barely even exists the rest of the time. “What? Where is this even. _Al._ ”

A part of Al wants to walk into the lunar lily bush and grab the nest barehanded, let the wasps remind him that he’s here and not empty, cold metal. And then Ed will be there, gentle hands and words like a dulled knife, caring. Attending. He forgets to answer Ed, he’s so focused on not doing that. 

He gets so floaty now, sometimes. When he’d been in the armor it hadn’t been like being floaty, or numb. It had been like--being nothing. Being no one. And every single day everyone draws further away, while he draws further into his own skin, trapped there. A point in space, coordinates, disconnected. It helped to be touched, for a while. He’d tried a girlfriend, and that had almost worked— but past a certain point, and he just… floaty again. 

Boys had been worse, almost. Maybe because he was desperate by then. Willing to put up with more.

“Al, what’s wrong?” Ed says. 

“Nothing,” Al says, and his voice echoes out of his own skull. He _hates_ that. Ed steps closer. He used to touch the armor all the time, a hand slapping his arm or curled up in Al’s lap. It couldn’t have been pleasant. Why did he do it? 

“I’m,” Ed says, “I’m gonna get Mei? To check on you, maybe?” 

“MEI doesn’t wanna TALK TO ME!” Al yells. He’s making fists so hard his knuckles burn with it. “We never had Mei before! Why do we need her now?!” 

“What’d— why doesn’t she wanna talk to you?” Ed asks, and he really looks puzzled, Al can _feel_ how genuine he is about it. Because Ed never asked. He never looked. He just _assumed_. 

“Does it matter? She doesn’t want to now, she’s not an _option_ you can just keep shoving me off onto whenever you get tired of dealing with me,” Al says. 

“What the fuck, Alphonse!” Ed yells, and his qi does the twisty thing that tells Al he’s really hurt him. He knows just what to do to fix it; which pressure point to access, the type of alkahestry that could cure it like it’s a physical wound. He wants to make it bigger, to see that he can still impact Ed. 

“Well I can’t suck your dick and your DICK is the only thing you CARE ABOUT now!” Al howls. “It’s all ANYONE cares about!” When did he start crying? Why is he so angry? 

“Did—” Ed says, breathing heavily with hurt and anger, but still biting it back, trying to think of Al first. He _hates_ it. Ed doesn’t get to think about him first now, just because it’s convenient. “Did Mei break up with you because of… your… dick?”

Al’s going to fucking kill him. 

“Fuck you,” Al whispers, and it’s jarring to both of them because Al doesn’t curse like that. Ever.

That was on purpose, when he chose not to swear. Ed throws them out easy as breathing, and so nobody really hears them anymore. They don’t _mean_ anything. Al thinks words should mean something, like, _brother_ means ‘someone you’re always there for’. 

It shakes him, starting in his hands and spreading through his limbs, until he’s trembling and shoving past Ed. Because his big idiot brother is a _big idiot,_ he grabs Al’s shoulder, tries to stop him. 

Then he shrieks in pain. “OH MOTHERFUCKER WHAT THE OUCH!”

He smacks at his own ass, and it’s a testament to Al’s fury that he isn’t even a little amused when a hornet flies off just before Ed’s hand makes contact. He simply stares at Ed, unimpressed. The hornet perches on Al’s shoulder for a moment, as if making sure Ed sees it, before buzzing off.

Most pertinently, he smacked with the hand that had been on Al’s shoulder. Al doesn’t… _have_ to stay here. Waiting for Ed to fuck up an apology, or to just get angrier and angrier until Ed gets angry back. He could walk away. He could leave, right now.

“Al,” Ed says brokenly, and Al crumbles. He always crumbles for Ed.

“I’m sorry,” Al says, and he even mostly means it.

“Yeah but—why? I mean, why are you—what do you _need?”_ Ed says. He tucks his hands into his pockets, balled up into fists. “Tell me what you need and I’ll fucking get it, but I can’t… I feel like I used to know you so well. I could just, fucking guess, and I’d always be right. But I don’t guess good anymore.” 

“You’re cruel, brother,” Al says, because it’s a truth they’re both living but it didn’t need to be said out loud. They didn’t need to give it a name, to breathe life into it. But it’s out there now, and Al wishes he’d popped himself earlier, because there’s a vacuum there now, and every breath he takes gets sucked away. 

“Yeah, I’m a real fucking asshole,” Ed says grimly, jaw clenched. “But I miss you. Obviously letting you just, figure your own shit out, and take the lead isn’t working, and I’m just avoiding you more to give you _space_ for your _feelings_ , but that didn’t _work either._ ”

“You don’t!” Al cries, and rubs at his eyes with his arm. He can’t see Ed clearly enough with all the fucking, blurry water in his way. “If you missed me you’d be _with_ me. I’m still --” he sobs a little, and he wishes more than anything that Ed would just _touch_ him. He wants his big brother to hug him more than he’s wanted anything in his entire life, and he curls into himself, clutching at his arms hard enough he can pretend they’re metal instead of bone. 

“All I do is _hurt you,_ ” Ed says, and he’s scrubbing at his own eyes now, qi twitching towards Al desperately, clingy. “I can’t fucking, my voice, my skin, anything, it all hurts you, and I don’t know how to _stop._ It’s worse to miss you when you’re _right there._ ”

“Only sometimes!” Al argues, like that’s enough for Ed, whose entire life thesis has been on How To Protect Al. He knows this, and he can’t _change_ it. “It only hurts sometimes, and I’d rather it hurt than not have it at all. That’s so much _worse,_ brother, I, I, I wish I was _back.”_

“You _are_ back!” Ed snaps, and rocks on the balls of his feet, forward. “You’re fucking amazing.”

Al scrubs his hands up and down his arms and shakes his head. “N-n- _no_ ,” he stammers, forcing the words through his teeth. “ _Back._ In the armor. In the _gate._ ” He sucks in a deep breath, has a moment in the way Ed’s reeled back, struck. “Then you could love m-m-me again without being scared of me.” 

Ed opens his mouth, closes it. Open, close. Like a fish drowning in air. 

Al pants, and heat flushes through him, head to toes. It makes him shiver, and there’s bitterness in his mouth again. He swishes his spit and watches the way Ed shifts, distorted through his tears. 

Ed clears his throat, gathers his thoughts. His qi twists to the left and Al’s _done._ “Ling said—” 

“SHUT UP!” Al yells, and throws himself on him, squeezing fiercely. Ed staggers, falls, and they land directly on the flowers. The hornets are gone, though Ed’s too distracted to be suspicious about it. Al shoves Ed back, face in his neck, and he makes sure to press their bodies as close together as possible. Wrists, hips, knees, bellies, toes. It’s -- nice. The heat rushes away, and he breathes clearly for the first time in days. Ed’s arms come around him without hesitation, and Al cries in relief. 

He’s been jealous lately, of the strangest things. When he sees kittens, jumbled in a pile of limbs, dogs, sleeping carelessly on each other. A mother holding her child, two lovers embracing, the woven trees that line the garden— they take two saplings when young, and bind them together, over and over. He’d asked about it, fascinated. Ed had been too distracted to listen to him about it. Didn’t seem to… get it. Just mentioned the three trees out back of Granny’s that had done the same, all on their own, and went on with his day. Like it was nothing.

Ed carefully pets Al’s spine with his metal hand. He’s waiting for Al to give him a hook, something he can use to guide the situation at hand. Al knows he doesn’t trust himself with feelings, and he’s so terrified of Al these days that he doesn’t even know how to start. 

“I can’t tell you what to say when I don’t even know what I want,” Al mumbles against Ed’s neck. “Sorry. You’re going to have to figure this one out yourself, Brother.” 

“I love you?” Ed asks, cautiously. 

Al sobs some more and tightens his hold. “He can learn,” he hiccups, just so Ed knows it’s a good cry. 

“I’ll always be here for you,” Ed says more confidently, gaining traction. “I promise. Even if we’re not the same, we’re still us. Okay? Nothing ever stays the same. That’s entropy. But I’m always gonna be decaying right next to you.”

Sometimes Al can’t talk. That’s old news, since he came back, and Ed, bless him, waits. Sometimes he’ll chatter while Al processes, filling the silence, and that’s fine. Nice. But, miracle of miracles, Ed’s also learned patience in the last few years. He’s demonstrating it right now. 

“I think we’re not doing it right,” Al decides. “Or, well. I think I’m not right. I didn’t come back right-- no, stop,” and he has his hand over Ed’s mouth. He doesn’t even lean up, just keeps his face in the safety of Ed’s skin. It’s dark, and damp. Ed smells like sweat, and grosser things. “I’m different, and it’s hard and you don’t know what to do and I--- maybe know a little bit. What to do.” 

Al peels his hand off. 

“You came back _mine,”_ Ed says fiercely, and Al snorts. It’s wet. It’s all over Ed’s shirt now. Ed makes a noise. “Maybe a little grosser.” 

“I wanna be yours,” Al admits, voice small so that Ed can hear that it’s an admission. Words mean things, Al truly believes that. 

Ed chews on that for a minute and says, slowly, hesitantly, “I don’t know what that means.”

“Things,” Al says. Ed freezes uncomfortably under him, and Al scrubs his face on Ed’s shirt and pulls away, he’s gotta rip away the bandage now before--

Ed’s arms lock, keeping Al in place, and Al’s breath stops. 

“Whatever you need,” he says heroically. Only slightly disgusted. Hiding it admirably. His entire qi is wincing away.

“No,” Al moans pitifully, and he shakes his head. “No, Brother, you’re misunderstanding me. That’s--- you’d--- _no_.” 

“Oh thank fuck,” Ed says in a rush, and drops his arms to the ground. “I love you so much Al and there are clearly no limits but I think that mighta pushed them.”

Al chews his lip a little and leans up so that he can look at Ed’s face. Faces are harder now than they were before. He can see individual traits, like the way Ed’s nose is red from trying not to cry, a little wet around the nostrils. Or the way his freckles spray across his nose and cheeks like a sneeze, splatters that you can only see up close with the way their skin goes brown, desert children that they are. His lips, red and soft, and his eyelashes, little butterfly wings brushing against his cheeks when he blinks. 

“I do not want to have sex with you,” Al says, very clearly, because words. Have. Meanings. Ed whines, covers his face. 

“Don’t even _say_ that, I’m traumatized,” he mutters. 

“I think,” Al says, still clearly. “I think maybe. I want something else, though.” He pokes Ed in the chest hard and actually looks at his eyes instead of the dimple in his cheek. He loves that they have the same eyes, now. “And no self sacrificial nonsense, ok? I can _feel_ it, so you can’t lie to me, and if it’s not something--- this is enough.” Al kicks at Ed’s ankle for emphasis. 

Ed laughs, nervously. His dimple deepens. “Um. I. Well? One of us will know? How I feel about whatever? I guess? Whatever horrible thing you’re leading up to?”

Al chews his lip some more, lettin the words settle on his tongue, waiting until they’re heavy enough to fall out. “Kissing. Maybe.” He feels himself blush and immediately loses all bravado, ducking and hiding his face in Ed’s neck. 

Ed doesn’t flinch, qi squinting up in the way that says he’s seriously considering it. “Um. _Just_ kissing? Like, on the...mouth…”

“I can’t stop wondering about it,” Al admits to Ed’s collarbone. “You and Winry look so _happy_ , and I’ve tried it with--- well. I’ve tried it, and it’s ok I guess, but I can feel you both when it’s you,” and he presses the heel of his palm in Ed’s sternum to emphasize, Ed going “Oh, qi stuff,” in understanding. 

“Yeah, qi stuff. And I’m maybe a little bit a lot jealous, and maybe a little but a lot lonely.” 

Ed is thinking _hard._ “I—well, you know about, me and Winry, right? It’s not, the kisses you’re… _feeling._ They’re not the ones when we... _you know,_ it’s the other ones? Like, hello and goodbye and I love you or I’m happy?” 

“God, when you talk it’s like someone made salad out of words and you tipped the bowl over,” Al complains, but he thinks he gets it. He chews on the collar of Ed’s shirt. 

“I’m fucking sorry, winner of Resembool’s grammar competition two hundred years going,” Ed starts. 

“I don’t get--aroused--” ah, that sucked, saying that sucked, he hates himself, “at all. Ever. For anyone. _Anyone._ ”

Ed’s qi does something—sad. Worried. “...oh. I meant. I. I don’t know how to respond to that. Anyways. I mean, you know I’m not… really attracted to Winry. Most of the time. That’s what I was tryin’a say.” 

“I know that’s what you were saying,” Al says slowly, to make sure Ed’s following along. Also to articulate with Ed’s shirt in his mouth. “I was giving you a comparison. Identifying similarities. I don’t want what it would be if you two were-- horny, or something--”

“NOPE,” Ed says loudly. “NOPE. Shut _up_. We’re all on the same page! No need to make me _eat it._ ”

“What kind of metaphor _is_ that?” Al asks, continuously amazed at the way Ed can warp languages into new and meaningless shapes.

“Word salad,” Ed says. “I’m hungry. Also, sure.” 

“Oh,” Al says. He expected to feel better, but feelings aren’t magic and he feels the same as he did 30 seconds ago. “Ok. We should get some food.” 

“Dibs on not explaining it to Winry,” Ed says.

He’s been meaning to do this since Winry’s last letter so Al decides now’s as good a time as ever. He leans up, looks Ed dead in the eyes in the way that’s hard for both of them, and says “It’s not like you talk to her anyways,” and lets the disappointment drip off of his words. Ed flinches. 

And then slaps at his upper arm, swearing. “What the fuck! Hornet! Why!”

Al wrinkles his nose. Whoops. He might have felt that disappointment a bit _strongly._ “I have salve in my room,” he says.

***

They plan to leave at sunset, because travelling the desert at night is the safest method with Ed’s automail and Al’s less than hardy body. They’re supposed to take a nap before, and Ed’s just finishing up his third round of peanut noodles when Al suggests they nap together. 

“Oh, I—” Ed starts, looks conflicted, and then puts down his chopsticks. “Yeah. Okay. If I let Ling say one more _short goodbye_ then I think he might actually trick me into some kind of concubine ceremony. Last time was _close_.” 

Hearing about Ling doesn’t irritate him this time, and he giggles a little at the imagery. “You’d make a pretty concubine,” Al teases him. “It’s the hair.” 

“We have the same hair! Yours is just, shorn, like a naked little lamb,” Ed protests. “Meanwhile, I’m a _strong, manly_ mountain goat, prepared to face the elements, not at all waifish or—”

Al gets up, and gets in Ed’s space, and Ed’s eyes widen and _Al’s_ eyes widen and he slides their lips together. He waits, a heartbeat, two, and Ed’s lips are greasy from the noodles. His body makes him lick his lips to clean them, and he forgets to pull away first. 

They maintain eye contact. 

Al stops maintaining lip contact.

“Bearable?” he asks.

“Can’t you tell for me?” Ed asks. 

“You just seem,” Al focuses. “Annoyed?”

“I was saving that fucking peanut noodle grease for later and you _stole it,”_ Ed hisses.

Relief breaks Al’s face into a grin, and Ed’s helpless to it, grinning right back, and then Al’s in his arms and they’re laughing, and hugging, and Ed’s not crying but Al maybe is a little. They wrestle some over who gets the pillow (Ed, because Al gets to lay on his chest) and who gets the blanket (Al, because he’s always cold) and who has to blow out the lantern so that they can actually try and rest. (Neither of them, because they’re lazy.) 

They kiss a little bit more, little careful brushes. Al explains all of the things he thinks he wants, and Ed gives them to him, rubbing his back and trailing his fingers through his hair and scratching at his scalp and massaging his knuckles. Sometimes Al gets floaty, but here with Ed’s hands and voice reminding him that he’s alive, Al feels more grounded than ever. His body’s still an armor of sorts, but it’s an armor that can finally feel the warmth of his brother's laugh against his cheek, the pattern of his heartbeat with Al’s ear pressed against his chest.

Ed maybe talks a little bit about how he wants things, too. It’s mostly stuff like, _to see you smile again,_ and that hits Al right in the center of his chest, where all the old hurts live. They’ve got a terrible track record, when it comes to just wanting to see someone smile again. Some of it is doable, brainstormed solutions for ways Al can show that he doesn’t want touch or that he desperately needs it. To Ed, with limited qi sensing that mostly picks up on violent intent, it looks the same. He doesn’t say anything about what Al said in the garden, that he sometimes wished he was in the armor again, but Al feels an echo of that heavy sorrowed shock every once in a while. He doesn’t poke at it. There’s not time.

They don’t end up getting any rest before they’re summoned to say their goodbyes. On their way into the main palace, Al steals a lunar lily flower, and tucks it behind his ear. It feels slightly more alive than the others, somehow. 

It feels happy.

**Author's Note:**

> [end notes:  
> “My emperor,” Lan Fan says, hand over her heart as she kneels. 
> 
> “Well?” Ling asks. 
> 
> “You’ve been outmatched,” she says. She isn’t smiling, but Ling knows her well enough to hear it. 
> 
> Ling flops dramatically onto the floor beside Lan Fan, and slaps at it. He’s in his private chambers, this type of foolishness is allowed. “No! My power! My riches! My divinity! My animal magnetism! All for naught! Defeated! By the power of _brotherly love._ ”
> 
> Something interesting happens in Lan Fan’s body language at that, and he perks up from his fake tantrum, rolling on his back. “Hm?”


End file.
